


A Hint, Underneath

by gotfanfiction



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Blood and Gore, M/M, Trigger Warning in End Notes, Vampires, hard angst, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotfanfiction/pseuds/gotfanfiction
Summary: Time had a way of slipping by you, when you lived as long as Witchers did. Weeks bled into months which bled into years, and Geralt wondered, sometimes, if it was just like this for him, or if every person either blessed or cursed with longevity experienced time in the same manner as he. Hadn’t it been only a moment when he first brought Ciri to Kaer Morhen?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	A Hint, Underneath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsarealpity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsarealpity/gifts).



> Please, please, PLEASE, check the end notes for a HUGE spoiler that is also a trigger warning! I love you all! Stay safe! I also didn't so much throw Witcher vampire lore out the window so much as... just stuffed classic vamp lore in there.

Time had a way of slipping by you, when you lived as long as Witchers did. Weeks bled into months which bled into years, and Geralt wondered, sometimes, if it was just like this for him, or if every person either blessed or cursed with longevity experienced time in the same manner as he. Hadn’t it been only a moment when he first brought Ciri to Kaer Morhen?

Ciri was growing into a capable young woman, and the surge of pride he felt at it no longer felt odd. Geralt relaxed by the fireplace with the girl who was his daughter in all but blood, her smiling at him openly while he hid his behind his tankard of very good mead. It had been a good day of training, followed by a filling meal and stories by the fire. 

He wasn't expecting a story of a bard who would come by Cintra to sing just for her, wasn't expecting the sharp sting of nostalgia mixed with grief, mood lowering despite Ciri's grinning recounts of Jaskier, his friend no longer, and he- misses him. 

She picks up on it right away, concern pinching her brows together, but he waves it away, the plans he's formed and discarded over and over again rising up again. He knows that this time, he won't be able to ignore them, or shove them back to where he won't have to think of them. 

*--*

Geralt didn't get much sleep, but he set off the next day, to find him, to apologize, to grovel, whatever it takes. The love he's tried to smother has grown thorns; it's tearing at his lungs, his hearts, pressing and swelling against his ribs. He hadn’t noticed, really, how could he have not noticed?

Jaskier is  _ human, _ he'll age and die long before him, and Geralt thinks of all the wasted time, feeling it acutely for once, so much lost, but he'll take whatever he can get now. He dreams of the coast, a small cottage by the sea, of taking Jaskier home to Kaer Morhen, making love near the fire, furs plush underneath them. 

Thinks of traveling with him again, of staying with him at Oxenfurt, spending his days lazing about, waiting for Jaskier to come home to him. Whatever he prefers. He'll do it. He loves him, he loves him so much. 

*--*

He can't seem to find him. The first few weeks he doesn't expect to hear much, after all, it has been  _ years, _ Geralt cursing himself for his stupidity, and Jaskier usually chooses warmer climes over colder ones, citing his fingers, and his need to keep them limber. But weeks bleed into months, each moment somehow painfully felt, and he's worrying. He should have heard something by now.

It's weeks more before he gets his first clue, overheard in a tavern  _ -did you hear about that bard that went missing?- _ and he. He's too fierce when he rushes over, too many teeth, voice a rough growl, panic clawing at his throat. The terrified patrons tell him everything they know, and it's half rumor, flowery language clouding the truth. 

He goes anyways, to the place where they claimed Jaskier was last seen, the White Wolf's Bard, and he finds - He finds a small cabin, almost cozy, flowers climbing up the sides, charmingly run down, the kind of place Jaskier would either scoff at or fall in love with immediately, depending on his mood at the time. 

Geralt can smell blood, old, the stench of it overpowering, but no decay, no hint that Jaskier is within, left for dead, left to  _ rot. _ He makes himself walk inside, and the whole place has been torn apart; the remains of fine clothes are scattered about, ripped to shreds. Jaskier's scent is all over the place, which means he must have been here for a while, can smell, also, the lingering traces of fear.

He spots the bard's dagger, the one Geralt bought for him years and  _ years _ ago, and it's,  _ gods, _ it's covered in Jaskier's blood, seeped into the hilt. It's dried, flakes off when he picks it up, drifting to the floor in a lazy swirl. He tucks the knife away, resolves to clean it before he returns it to its owner. 

He'd nearly regretted the gift, Jaskier taking to knife work like he'd been born for it, happy to stab anyone who so much as looked at Geralt sideways. They'd gotten run out of places before, Jaskier grinning and bloodied up to his wrist. He loved the damn thing. He would be happy to see it returned to him, he would. 

Geralt finds Jaskier's journals, splattered with blood, pages torn clean out, crumpled up and ruined, some burned, some simply torn into small pieces. Most of the food in the place has been left to rot, a tickle on his nose, barely able to scent anything under the blood. 

At least Jaskier's lute is safe, kicked under the bed, almost no damage to it, save for a scuff or two. Geralt holds it in shaking hands, put his terror aside long enough to breathe in deeply, focusing his senses, and he smells-  _ vampire.  _

Fuck. 

**_Fuck._ **

*--*

He follows his nose, which rarely lets him down, keeps his eyes on the woods around him, notes places where struggling seemed to have happened, blood and broken foliage and fear, always. Jaskier was afraid. He was  _ terrified. _

Geralt spends what seems like the longest week of his life tracking a scent he knows as well, if not better, than his own, lute strapped to his saddle, dagger warm in his hand, keeps going even as the scent twists, changes, and suddenly all he can smell is  _ death, _ and it nearly breaks him then, on his knees, gasping, hope refusing to die in his chest. 

This emotion has grown thorns as well, ripping at him, somehow winning the battle with his practicality. He’s feeling, right now, feeling so much more than he can stand, and he thinks, briefly, if this was how Jaskier was all the time, a swirling mass of chaos badly contained by skin. If this is how most people are, heartbeats rabbit quick, emotions driving them, always.

Geralt manages to sleep just enough that he isn’t on the verge of collapse. It isn’t restful, but it’s better than nothing, and he can’t risk his body failing him, not when Jaskier’s safety is at stake, not when there’s still even the slimmest chance he might still be alive. He might still be alive. He had to be alive.

*--*

He smells the place before he sees it; the crumbling house  _ reeks _ of decay, of blood, but it’s eerily silent, considering it’s a vampire’s den. The only sound he can hear besides the general background noise of the world is a quiet breathing, coming from someplace high up. 

Geralt draws his silver sword, somehow knowing what he’s going to find before he even walks inside. The mutilated, bloated corpses of vampires are littered about the place, and he isn't- he isn't surprised. There's so many that it would be easier to just set the entire building on fire, rather than try to separate each body and drag them outside to burn them.

He doesn't want to think about how the only things that can usually kill a vampire are either a Witcher or another vampire, but his practicality is finally winning out, and while he can hear breathing he doesn't hear anything else. No heart is beating in this place besides his own. 

The stairs creak under his weight, and he can't even bring himself to worry over it, mind whirling over a hint of that familiar, beloved scent, hidden under blood and death. A door is cracked open, half off its hinges at the end of the hall at the top of the stairs he climbed, and it falls to the floor when he tries to push it open. 

Jaskier is huddled on an absolutely destroyed bed, frame splintered into chunks and slivers, dry eyed, though he must have been weeping at some point. Geralt can see wear tears streaked through the blood covering his face.

He sheaths his sword, a mistake, probably, his instincts screaming at him, and Jaskier looks as surprised as Geralt is not. 

"Will you kill me, now?" Jaskier's voice is hoarse, tremulous, wavering in pitch, so unlike him that Geralt almost doesn't hear the real question underneath. 

He won't. He  _ can't, _ gods, he  _ can't. _ "No," he says, kneeling on the ruined mattress next to his- next to his friend, before anything else, his  _ friend.  _

"What if I contract you?" 

_ "No." _

Jaskier, whose eyes are dark in a sunken face, who must have been starving himself in here, after he finished killing all the other vampires, who still smells, somehow, like  _ himself _ under the stink of gore and his own vampirism, starts begging Geralt to do it. He says, “please, I can’t live without the sun,” but Geralt knows.

He knows what he really means. Jaskier can’t bear to live like this, forced to kill just to survive, trapped in the darkness, the soul inside him withering away until all that was left were the cruelest, most selfish parts of him. It happened to all turned vampires, every single one, no matter how good or noble or kind they had been while living, and Jaskier knew this, because Geralt had explained it to him in a rare fit of verbosity. 

Geralt draws his sword again, Jaskier’s eyes slipping shut in relief, in gratitude, and he pulls him into his arms, and Jaskier melts into the embrace. Geralt kisses him, and underneath the blood is a hint of something sweet, and he breathes out, “I love you.  _ I’m sorry.” _

*--*

He digs as the house burns, Roach safely out of the way, hands tearing at the earth until his fingernails crack and bleed. The smell is atrocious, but anything is better than what the house had stunk like before. Geralt keeps the dagger, and almost keeps the lute as well, but it seems disrespectful, to leave Jaskier without his most prized belonging. 

He burns him, before pushing the dirt over him. It hurts him to do it, this one last necessary thing. Geralt is on his knees before he can even process it, sobs wracking his frame, chest peeled open, heart lying burned in a grave no one but he will ever know is there. 

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH: Geralt has to kill Jaskier; Jaskier begs him to after being turned into a vampire against his will! If you back out I'll totally understand. <3


End file.
